This is killing your business …

This article examines how basic yet often overlooked business practices—like ensuring clear visibility and answering the phone—can significantly impact commercial success. Drawing on first-hand observations, the author recounts instances where a dimly lit service station and unresponsive restaurants lost potential customers simply by appearing closed or unavailable. While many modern companies focus intently on controlling visible costs and penalising small infractions (e.g., theft of a candy bar), they frequently ignore far larger “opportunity costs” stemming from underinvestment in fundamental necessities. The piece highlights how such inattention to common-sense measures, driven by a narrow focus on financial metrics, ultimately stifles revenue and harms economic growth. By reconnecting with principles espoused over a century ago in the short classic “Obvious Adams,” the author argues that rediscovering these simple yet essential practices—switching on the lights, picking up the phone, and making it easy for customers to do business—could yield outsized gains. Ultimately, the article serves as a call to action for companies and their leaders to revisit the fundamentals of customer engagement, thereby strengthening both individual enterprises and the broader economy.

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